Holmfirth rider Amira Mellor will represent Great Britain at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup at Milton Keynes this weekend.

The 17-year Holme Valley Wheelers rider is part of a seven-strong Great Britain team competing in the global event on Saturday November 29th.

Mellor was called up to the Great Britain side following her victory at Durham in the Women’s National Trophy, which she is currently leading.

The event will take place at Milton Keynes’ Campbell Park as course designers have laid a world-class 2.6 kilometre course which is bound to get the best out of the riders.

Mellor has this season participated in a Superprestige race in Belgium, which will serve as great experience for her first outing in a World Cup.

She received the call-up from GB selector Stuart Blunt following the Supercross event in London and admits to having problems containing her excitement:

“It was amazing! I nearly cried but I didn’t” she said.

“I was just so excited to be picked. It’s unbelievable. At the beginning of September I set a few aims for the Cross season and being selected for Milton Keynes was one of them.”

The World Cup will be the biggest cyclo-cross even to be held on the British Isles since Leeds hosted the world championships in 1992. The 2014/2015 World Cup has previously visited Valkenburg in Netherlands and Koksjide in Belgium before heading to Mllton Keynes.

The series then continues to Namur and Huesden-Zolder beofre finishing in Hoogerheide, renowned for being one of the icon venues for cyclo-cross.

A fifth rider with links to Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali’s Astana team has failed a doping test.

World governing body the UCI on Wednesday announced that Artur Fedosseyev has been provisionally suspended for using anabolic steroids during August’s Tour de l’Ain.

The 20-year-old Kazakhstan rider competes for Astana’s feeder squad, its continental team, and news of his failed test comes as a further blow to the outfit.

Italian Nibali was the standout performer at the 2014 Tour de France and, while there are no suggestions of wrongdoing on his part, questions continue to surround his team after numerous recent infringements which see Astana’s licence under review.